Another Hollywood management company is betting that newsletter writers and podcast hosts belong on the same roster as movie stars. According to The Hollywood Reporter‘s Etan Vlessing, Los Angeles-based Entertainment 360 has bought Brigade, a creative management firm focused on digital talent, as it pushes deeper into the creator economy. Terms were not disclosed.
Brigade founder Max Stein becomes a partner at Entertainment 360 and brings his team and clients with him. According to TheWrap‘s Lucas Manfredi, the move takes effect immediately, and Brigade will keep working closely with its existing clients while drawing on Entertainment 360’s representation, production and business development teams.
Who Brigade represents
Stein started Brigade a little over a decade ago to represent distinctive voices in fashion, media and culture, according to Deadline‘s Max Goldbart. Its roster reads like a who’s who of the Substack and podcast crowd:
- Writer and fashion personality Leandra Medine Cohen
- Feed Me newsletter creator Emily Sundberg
- How Long Gone podcast hosts Chris Black and Jason Stewart
- Stylist Danielle Goldberg
- I Want Your Sex writer and producer Karley Sciortino
- TV personality Zanna Roberts Rassi
- After School newsletter founder Casey Lewis
TheWrap adds writer and stylist Becky Malinsky and American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Isabella Boylston to that list.
Movie stars and Substackers under one roof
Deadline describes Entertainment 360 as a firm that represents the likes of Margot Robbie, Jeremy Allen White and Julianne Moore. The New York Times’ Callie Holtermann framed the deal the same way: with Brigade on board, Substack writers and podcast hosts are now managed by the same company as movie stars.
The Hollywood Reporter says Entertainment 360 plans to lean on Brigade to sign digital talent to brand deals and partnerships, along with new business in publishing, podcasts and traditional media. Deadline notes the purchase follows the company’s hiring of former Anonymous Content partners Tony Lipp and Dara Gordon a few weeks ago.
What both sides are saying
“I’ve always been drawn to people with a singular point of view, whose work and ambitions don’t fit neatly into one category,” Stein said in a statement. “Our clients have built remarkable careers by following their own taste and instincts, and our job has been to help them turn those ideas into lasting businesses.”
He added that joining Entertainment 360 “gives our clients access to many more opportunities, while allowing us to preserve the personal approach that has always defined Brigade.”
The Entertainment 360 partners said “the ways audiences discover and engage with entertainment have changed, and so have the needs of the talent building careers today,” and that Stein “recognized this evolution early.”
The takeaway
Old-school Hollywood representation keeps moving toward creators. A newsletter or a podcast with a loyal audience is now treated as a real business worth managing, the same way a film career is. For independent creators, the message is simple: build a voice people pay attention to, and the dealmakers will come looking.
Image: AI-generated illustration.
